D-Day Tours

Email Overlord tours and see if you can book this early. They do all day and half day tours of the American beaches which are excellent, not terribly expensive and in reasonably sized groups. We chose to do that although we had a car in Bayeux because we hadn't had time to do the homework necessary to plan our own trip. We covered Omaha and Iowa, The American Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc, Angouleme, the Airborne Museum. Excellent day.

I doubt it is crazy crowded in early May and you could probably do the tour on your own if you wanted to but for 70 Euro or thereabouts, it was nice to let someone else do the driving and logistics -- and we are generally not tour people.

Also check out Dale Booth. He used to work for a company called Battlebus and then went out on his own. He now does a B&B along with the tours, but because of his reputation he gets booked early.

I did the Overlord Tour and loved it,I dont think that you can get the information on your own and parking could be a problem where the mini van knows where to go.
Mike

I can't urge you enough to spend the money to go a guided tour. It seems expensive, but it is well worth the money and so much more enriching than doing it on your own. I too found the prices a little steep, but after the experience, I would have paid double. You'll learn and understand so much more by going with one of these professionals (no I don't work for any of them and have only done the tour once, a few years ago!).

I used Bayeux Shuttle twice this summer (for both 1/2 day D-Day tours and full day Mt. St. Michel tours) and really enjoyed it. Their D-Day tour guide Sabrina was particularly excellent. Go to the Bayeux Shuttle website and you can book now for May. Also, the May price for the 1/2 day D-Day tour is only 50 euros/person. It looks like you can book any day you want.

Thank you everybody for the great suggestions.

Try www.ddayhistorian.com. We used them a few years ago. I would also urge you to use a guide, you can't imagine the knowledge they have and you will be so pleased with their recreation of WWII events.

My husband and I visited D-Day sites with a rental car, and found it very good for us. We have both read a great deal about D-Day so did not feel we needed a guide (even though you always learn new things). We enjoyed being able to go to the specific sites we wanted to see, stay as long or as little as we wanted, and then move on. We visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach, but really liked some of the less-well-known sites that are written up in Major and Mrs Holt's Pocket Battlefield Guide to Normandy Landing Beaches. In particular, my husband enjoyed seeing Musee le Mur de l'Atlantique which is an old German observation bunker which was not destroyed. It was fairly easy to get around with the rental car, and when we did get lost it was easy to backtrack.